


Running In My Sleep

by Rogue21



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dreaming, F/M, Post Main Game, Romance, The Fade, slight feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 01:17:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8645524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogue21/pseuds/Rogue21
Summary: Lavellan is plagued by nightmares. Corypheus chases her while she chases after her lost love who has vanished. In one particular horrifying nightmare she finds help in the form of Cole, calling upon Compassion to help her reach Solas.





	

“MA VHENAN!” every night Ariandel Lavellan would wake up in her room screaming the same Dalish words. Empty, quiet, and once again Solas was gone and Corypheus was still dead. It would begin the same, she would be in the secluded cove and Solas would be waiting there for her, whispering sweet nothings in her ear. But then red lyrium would engulf him and he’d transform into Corypheus demanding her blood. The cove would break away and she’d be in the physical Fade running. A wolf would run alongside her until she finally sees Solas walking through an Eluvian. At that point Corypheus would catch her whilst she screamed for Solas. She curled up under the bed covers as rain softly tapped at the windows.

“Where are you Solas?” she whispered to herself as she closed her eyes to return to sleep. No one knew about these nightmares, Sera would only laugh and say it was just her being her Elfy self. Dorian would recommend some form of sleeping draught and Blackwall would mention the nightmares he suffered. No one had any advice for her.

Ariandel opened her eyes and she was back in the secluded cove, she could see Solas waiting for her. A warm smile on his face, wearing the Dalish woollen coat she had commissioned for him.

“Ma Vhenan,” he said softly as she approached him.

“Solas, please come back to me,” she begged, falling into his arms.

“I will…one day,” he assured her. Ariandel sighed and kissed him with passion.

“These dreams…how do they stop?” she asked him as he gently ran his fingers through her hair.

“They never will, the Elder One will have his vengeance,” Solas said as once again the red lyrium began to grow out of his form and his body began to twist and contort into Corypheus.

“No…No, not again,” she pleaded stepping away from the demonic form that was shaping before her.

“Your precious Elf can’t save you now,” the demonic voice said with a snarl as Solas was gone and Corypheus stood before her. She tried to scream but all was silent from her lips. Suddenly an ethereal hand clutched at her arm.

“This way,” they said tugging at her to follow them. She followed the Spirit through the cove as it began to slowly break away and Corypheus followed after her.

“Come back here!” he shouted after her. Ariandel and the Spirit kept running until they finally stopped to hide in the War Room.

“We’ll be safe for now,” the Spirit said changing their form. Ariandel blinked in surprise.

“Cole!” she gasped. “Am I glad to see you,” she said reaching forward to hug him.

“Cole is resting his mortal side, I am Compassion, I feel your fear and I want to help,” he told her. Ariandel sighed, she had never seen Compassion in their spirit form before, but she was aware of them.

“Well…then Cole or Compassion…” she began.

“Use Cole, it is familiar to us both,” Cole told her.

“Cole, I’ve been having this dream for days now, every time Solas turns into Corypheus and chases me through the Fade and when I do find Solas, he leaves through an Eluvian and…that’s when Corypheus catches me,” she explained. Cole thought deeply and snapped his fingers.

“If we follow the pattern we can stop the fear when it strikes,” he suggested.

“I don’t know, I’m pretty scared already.” Ariandel felt warm fur brush up against her legs as she saw a wolf looking up at her with strangely familiar looking eyes.

“Fen’harel?” she asked. The stories of Fen’harel being seen in the dreams of Elves was always spoken about amongst the people. Was this Wolf always Fen’harel but she had been so focused on feeling Corypheus to notice? The wolf nuzzled her hand as if to answer her question.

“What is your game, are you here to help or deceive?” she asked the wolf.

“He is here to help, he wants you to follow him but you are always running away from Corypheus,” Cole said. Ariandel gently scratched the wolf behind the ears and opened the door of the War Room. The Fade, physical like the last time she was there at Adamant. The Wolf softly barked and began to walk away towards a small alcove. Ariandel followed to see her bow and a quiver of arrows hidden inside. Curious she looked at the Wolf who pawed at the bow. She picked them up and equipped the bow, drawing an arrow out to be prepared.

The three of them walked through the fade slowly and cautiously. Corypheus was somewhere in this dream, she just had to find him. Cole had his daggers, although they retained an ethereal form like himself.

“What is your goal in these dreams?” he asked her.

“To find Solas, I will dream forever if it means having a chance of finding him,” Ariandel said as they walked. The wolf whimpered at her statement, as if he was empathetic to her cause. She glanced down at the wolf who seemed to have sadness in his eyes. “Don’t be sad for me Fen’harel,” she assured the wolf.

“Your heart aches,” Cole whispered. “Sadness expanding, constant feel of rain upon yourself, why did you leave?” Ariandel glanced at her friend, was he talking to her or the Wolf. They continued walking through the Fade until they finally reached the bridge.

“Here, this is where it normally ends, Solas walks through the Eluvian and Corypheus catches me but…I don’t see Solas.” Where was he?

“Found you!” a voice shouted from behind them. The wolf started growling as they turned to see Corypheus looming over them.

“This time you will die and your spirit will be trapped with me forever,” he said to her.

“That is the fear talking, do not let it get to you,” Cole advised her. Ariandel pointed her bow up at Corypheus her hands shaking as she gripped the string.

“I killed you before, I can do it again, I still have the anchor…the anchor,” Ariandel withdrew the bow and arrow, placing the bow upon her back and flicking her wrist to activate the anchor. “Get out of my dreams!” her hand glowing she grabbed Corypheus by the face, digging her nails into his flesh as he yelled out in pain.

“No!” he yelled as his body began to decay and crumble away and he was vanquished from her in a burst of green light. Tiny fade-like dust settled around them as Ariandel looked at where she had always failed in her dream.

“Not this time,” she muttered. She turned around to see the Eluvian working and shining. The wolf walked forwards towards the mirror and went through. She glanced at Cole who pointed towards the mirror.

“This is where I leave you, go,” he encouraged her before fading away out of the dream. Ariandel breathed out and approached the Eluvian. She reached out and touched the shining silvery liquid as her fingers went through, so did she force herself to go through the mirror.

 

On the other side of the mirror was the Temple of Mythal, where Solas had begged her not drink from the Well of Sorrows. It was overgrown and silent but there was beauty in its emptiness, a beauty that she never saw the first time. Was it here Solas was always going to?

“Solas?” she called out as she wandered through the Temple. Where had the wolf gone too? “Ma Vhenan?” She followed the path they had taken, followed it to where they fought Samson and up to where the Well of Sorrows once was. Before it was the Eluvian they had escaped through but it was broken.

“I knew you’d find me sooner or later,” a voice called out. She turned and looked around.

“Solas?” out from behind the Eluvian walked Solas. “Ma Vhenan.”

“Ma Vhenan, I should have realised that you would keep searching for me, even if the nightmare was trying to stop you,” he said.

“How did you know?”

“You weren’t seeing me but an illusion, however I am real, I called out to Cole and he reached out to you, together we helped you beat your fear and in doing so allowed you to finally follow me through the Eluvian,” he explained to her.

“But how did…the Wolf…it was you,” Ariandel said scarcely believing it.

“Yes, the fabled Dread Wolf, guiding his love to the Eluvian, unfortunately I always hoped that you would make it through but it seemed that the nightmare would get to you first.” Ariandel approached Solas and reached out to touch his face.

“Why did you leave?” she asked him.

“Because the people need me, I have a goal to accomplish and I need to do it for the sake of the people,” he said.

“But I don’t count…because I’m Dalish, because I bear the Vallaslin upon my face,” she said feeling tears in her eyes.

“You are special Vhenan but you have already done so much that I have to finish this alone, even without my Orb of power,” Solas said gesturing to the anchor on her hand. She glanced at it then at him.

“So take it…if you can,” she said. “I never wanted it, even now I don’t want it, I just…why couldn’t you stay?” she asked as tears began to fall. Solas bowed his head in sadness and pulled her in close.

“I wanted to…I truly wanted to, but I created this mess and I must fix it, even if it means that we can’t stay dreaming forever,” he said to her.

“So why don’t we stay dreaming forever?” Ariandel asked. She looked up at Solas.

“Because we must wake up at some point,” he told her.

“Then…if we have to wake up, let me at least have one last kiss, one that we can’t forget, so I can stop running,” she said wiping the tears from her eyes. Solas chuckled a little and ran his fingers through her hair.

“Of course Ma Vhenan,” he said and softly kissed her. Ariandel felt everything freeze around her as she soaked up the moment, the feeling of his lips, his hands on her waist, everything she needed in order to remember that one moment.

Even if it turned out to just be a dream.

When Ariandel awoke, she was back in Skyhold and it was a wet dawn greeting her. A strong sense of melancholy was heavy in her chest as she slowly dragged herself out of bed to get changed and go down to the great hall for breakfast. When she opened the door she was greeted by Cole who was holding a necklace in his hands.

“Cole, how are you this morning?” she asked curiously.

“I am well, but you are sad, we stopped the nightmare but you’re still hurting, he wanted me to give you this when the time was right,” Cole told her placing the necklace into her hands. Ariandel observed it, the wolf jaw bone that Solas always wore around his neck.

“How did-?”

“It doesn’t matter, what matters is no more nightmares,” he told her closing her fingers around the necklace. Ariandel smiled, feeling the melancholia subside. She hugged Cole and sighed.

“Thank you,” she said to him. She let him go and they went down into the great hall. It was only a small piece but it was enough to stop her chasing the Dread Wolf through her dreams…at least for a while.


End file.
